Winches are commonly-used mechanical devices that can be used to wind up or let out rope, cable, chain, cord, wire, straps, or other flexible members or strands. Such devices can include a spool, hub, or drum and a mechanism for winding up or letting out the flexible strand. Such mechanisms can be manual, such as a crank or reel, or electronically operated, such as with a motor or other electromechanical device.
With winches, the flexible strand is typically connected to the spool at or near an end of the flexible strand. For example, an end of the flexible strand can be tied to itself or otherwise coupled or fixed to structure included in the drum. Such structures can include a bolt on a flange of the drum to which a user can attach an end of the rope, which can include a loop formed directly into (or spliced onto) the rope itself. In other devices, the drum can include a slot extending through the drum, through which an end of the rope can be passed and coupled to the drum. Examples of such attachment mechanisms can be seen, by way of example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,925,687, 6,923,394, 6,719,241, 5,988,095, 5,957,433, 5,779,226, 5,664,766, 5,346,153, 5,312,061, 4,953,829, and U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2017/0327355, 2016/0083231, 2014/0124719, and 2013/0334479.
Thus, to connect a rope to conventional winches, a user must have access to and be able to reach the winch hub and rope—typically the end or approximate end of the rope. In situations where a user is unable to get to or access the winch or rope, therefore, the user would not be able to connect the winch to the rope. By way of example only, these situations could include: rope hanging from cliff or tall building or other high, out-of-reach location; rope in a dangerous location or a location that one is not able to reach, such as on a frozen lake with thin ice, around a fire, or an area where hazardous chemicals are present, in hostile environments, or in a place where dangerous animals are located.
There is therefore a need for an improved winch device in which a user can connect to a rope at various points along a length thereof—even when the user is unable to manually access the flexible strand.